Wednesday, February 03, 2010

I'm going to find a way to give you the music I want you to listen to!

I have always made tapes for people so that I could introduce them to new music. My efforts to distribute stuff anonymously have failed, possibly because it's not legal, but I'm not really sure, and it certainly doesn't matter. The point is that I will very shortly be providing temporary links to music upon request to music that either strikes my fancy or used to be available at this blog (see category list). You can send me a request by using the email in my profile.

Let's see if we can make this work.

4 comments:

HK said...

MP: What ethical standard do you use to decide when you pay for recorded music and when you are willing to take it freely or give it freely?

Personally, I use two rules of thumb.
First, I categorically do not share (take or give) music by New Orleans musicians. This derives from my closeness to the scene and my understanding that these guys, if they are making a living at all from music, are making a very meager living. I SEEK OUT opportunities to support them by paying for their concerts and buying their music. Rather than give away their music, I encourage others to buy it and give recommendations. I make very rare exceptions in the case where either I or my friend is COMMITTED to buying some new music; then I'm willing to do a little sharing in an effort to guide their or my purchase. A sample, if you will.

Second, I carry that first concept further but, admittedly, into further grey territory and say that I only freely share music from artists who I feel, in my own personal opinion, have "earned enough" -- Rolling Stones, U2, etc. For an artist who I still feel is trying to earn a living from their art, I endeaver to pay them for it and encourage others to do so. I pretty freely share the music of dead artists unless their demise was so recent that I feel their kids or widow might still need the profit from the estate.

I'm not trying to be judgmental --- just curious what your thought process is because it appears to be different than mine.

-HK

MPomy said...

HK: My standard used to be that I had no standard. That evolved a similar approach that you outlined wherein I didn't want to take money out of the pocket of the starving artist. That person has made such a sacrifice for my enjoyment, I must encourage legit purchases.

This new approach is still taking shape, and I don't think there will be that much demand, but I'm just going to do what I did when I was fifteen: if somebody likes something in my collection, I will copy it for them.

MPomy said...

The other point I want to make is that a LOT of this material is NOT commercially available. Dime rules are good rules.

HK said...

dime rules make sense to me as long as the artist permitted recording at the time the recording was made.
I had an AWESOME gig tonight.......in my top-10........and as I was driving home, I was thinking I wanted to convert our Wednesday jam session into a wednesday GIG.........for you to sit in on generously.......we have a gig scheduled for tuesday between weekends.....any chance you can get in for tuesday, or do I need to make wednesday happen?